Films, Literature and all what you need.

Main Menu

Frank Awards 2014: Art and Effects

Another year has gone by, so that another edition of the Frank Awards must happen! So, these are the Frank Awards 2014, my personal favorites, my favorite things of the year in amazing and various categories. As with my top 20 films of the year, these awards and the films nominated are for films that were released in 2014 and only in 2014. Besides that, this is practically a free-for-all, anything and probably most things that haven’t been noticed, will be nominated, this is my taste, tremble before it.

I decided to, once again, divide up the categories in groups, and I will try to give it some interesting shape, or at least I want to try. Hey! Let’s begin!

Best Art Direction

The winner in this category last year, ‘Only Lovers Left Alive’ (2013), was for the workers Marco Bittner Rosser, Anja Fromm and Anu Schwartz, only one of them had a work released in 2014: Anu Schwartz, who worked as art director in ‘The Normal Heart’ and ‘The Angriest Man in Brooklyn’ (the last one being the only one I saw, and it wasn’t really the most impressive in its art department).

As you might notice, this year the hobbit team is nominated once again, being two of them (Simon Bright and Andy McLaren) winners of a previous Frank Award in the same category for their work in ‘Avatar’ (2009). The team for ‘Interstellar’ is mostly a no-show in previous Frank Awards, except for Gary Kosko that was nominated for ‘Star Trek’ (2009) and Dean Wolcott, who was nominated for ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ (2012) and won for ‘Inception’ (2010). In the team nominated for ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ is a slew of previously nominated hard workers, like Stephen O. Gessler and Steve Summersgill who were nominated for ‘Inglourious Basterds’ (2009) and ‘Cloud Atlas’ (2012), while Adam Stockhausen and Gerald Sullivan were both nominated for the previous Wes Anderson film, ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ (2012).

And the Winners are…

Was there ever another choice? This movie is preciously put together, like one of the cakes that Saoirse Ronan does as a baker, with every little thing in its place, with every piece of beauty, and each framed spectacularly magnificently captured by the style of Wes Anderson. This is a work of art. Great work Stephen O. Gessler, Adam Stockhausen, Gerald Sullivan and Steve Summersgill on ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’

***

Best Costume Design

The winners of this category last year are nominated once again this year for their continuous work in The Hobbit, last year for ‘The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug’ (2013), on the hands of Bob Buck, Ann Maskrey and Richard Taylor.

So, this year the nominees are:

Mark Bridges for ‘Inherent Vice’

Bob Buck, Ann Maskrey and Richard Taylor for ‘The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies’

Alexandra Byrne for ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’

Milena Canonero for ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’

Chieko Matsumoto for ‘Tokyo Tribe’

The only repeats are, as told before, are the three costume designers of The Hobbit, who won last year and were nominated in 2012 for the first Hobbit film. The rest are first-time nominees in great films.

And the Winner/s is/are…

Sorry, but not sorry. It’s not favoritism, but the amount of costumes that appear here in the bodies of humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, monsters, wizards, everything here mixes and it’s a shining example of how the hard work and preparation does pay off. People tend to hate these movies for some reason, but here’s one thing that I can’t understand, their craft is unbelievably good and I don’t care how ‘fantasy’ those elements are, they are masterpieces, and here Bob Buck, Ann Maskrey and Richard Taylor have made it once again with ‘The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies’.

***

Best Special Effects

The winner last year was almost too obvious ‘Gravity’ (2013), maybe one of the most surprising special effects in a long time. Great work here, but what does this year awaits us?

This year the nominees are:

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Godzilla

Guardians of the Galaxy

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Interstellar

And the film with the best special effects is:

While for some ‘Interstellar’ would be a better choice, I decided to give this award to what was maybe the best time at the movies this year, ‘Godzilla’, a spectacle of special effects, and more than anything else, a way to bring back the giant monster that we all love and hold dear. This is the movie that brought that monster alive once again, let’s give it the praise it needs.

***

Best Makeup

Last year the blood, guts and props, as well as head-wear present in all the segments of ‘V/H/S/2’ (2013), made it one of the best showcases of modern makeup talent. This year, what do we have?

The nominees are:

Guardians of the Galaxy

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

The Raid 2: Berandal

X-Men: Days of Future Past

[REC] 4: Apocalipsis

And the movie with the best makeup is…

The work with every different species, alien and other creatures in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ was impeccable, and maybe the most impressive that I’ve seen in a while, where the creatures that weren’t done with CGI actually had some love in them, a craft that is rare and expensive, but here turns real, it gives them life, it doesn’t hide, it gives character.

Amicus Productions: Horror-Scifi

Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965)
The Skull (1965)
Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965)
The Psychopath (1966)
Dalek's Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. (1966)
The Terrornauts (1967)
The Deadly Bees (1967)
They Came from Beyond Space (1967)
Torture Garden (1967)
The Mind of Mr. Soames (1970)
The House That Dripped Blood (1971)
I, Monster (1971)
Tales from the Crypt (1972)
What Became of Jack and Jill? (1972)Asylum (1972)
The Vault of Horror (1973)-- And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973)
From Beyond the Grave (1974)
Madhouse (1974)
The Beast Must Die (1974)
The Land That Time Forgot (1975)
At the Earth's Core (1976)
The People That Time Forgot (1977)
The Monster Club (1981)

Hammer Pictures: Horror-Fantasy-Sci Fi

The Mystery of the Marie Celeste (1935)
Man in Black (1949)
Dick Barton Strikes Back (1949)
Dick Barton at Bay (1950)
Four Sided Triangle (1953)
Spaceways (1953)
The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)
X: The Unknown (1956)The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)
Quatermass 2 (1957)
The Abominable Snowman (1957)
Tales of Frankenstein (1958)Dracula (1958)The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)
The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959)
The Mummy (1959)
The Stranglers of Bombay (1960)The Brides of Dracula (1960)
The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960)
The Terror of the Tongs (1961)
Taste of Fear (1961)
The Curse of the Werewolf (1961)
Shadow of the Cat (1961)
Captain Clegg (1962)
The Phantom of the Opera (1962)
Paranoiac (1963)
The Damned (1963)
Maniac (1963)
The Kiss of the Vampire (1963)
The Old Dark House (1963)
Nightmare (1964)
The Evil of Frankenstein (1964)
The Gorgon (1964)
The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (1964)
Fanatic (1965)
She (1965)
The Nanny (1965)
The Plague of the Zombies (1966)Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966)
The Reptile (1966)
Rasputin: The Mad Monk (1966)
The Witches (1966)
One Million Years B.C. (1966)
Slave Girls (1967)
The Mummy's Shroud (1967)
Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)
Quatermass and the Pit (1967)
Journey to Midnight (1968)
Journey into Darkness (1968)
The Vengeance of She (1968)
The Lost Continent (1968)
The Devil Rides Out (1968)
"Journey to the Unknown" (1968)Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968)
Frankenstein Must be Destroyed (1969)
Moon Zero Two (1969)Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970)
Crescendo (1970)
The Vampire Lovers (1970)
When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970)
The Horror of Frankenstein (1970)Scars of Dracula (1970)
Lust for a Vampire (1971)
Countess Dracula (1971)
Creatures the World Forgot (1971)
Twins of Evil (1971)
Blood from the Mummy's Tomb (1971)
Hands of the Ripper (1971)
Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1971)
Vampire Circus (1972)Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972)
Straight on Till Morning (1972)
Fear in the Night (1972)
Demons of the Mind (1972)The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973)
Captain Kronos - Vampire Hunter (1974)
Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974)The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974)
To the Devil a Daughter (1976)
"Hammer House of Horror" (1980)
"Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense" (1984)
Flesh and Blood: The Hammer Heritage of Horror (1984)
Beyond the Rave (2008)
Let Me In (2010)The Resident (2011)